Serial Maker is back! 🎉

And there's a lot to talk about

Hello makers,

It’s been a minute. I sent the last Serial Maker newsletter 5 years ago! If you've been here since the Mailchimp days, welcome back. If you're new, the archive is everything you missed.

Why did I stop writing? I was simply burned out. A weekly newsletter is a lot of work, and it started to feel like a chore — not the fun, inspiring brain dump it used to be.

Why am I starting it up again now? Well, a lot has happened in 5 years, and especially in the last 6 months. I want to talk about it.

This new Serial Maker will be closer to a monthly release cycle instead of weekly. If I have more to say, I may send more frequently. Less to say? Maybe I skip a month. I want to keep this fun.

Let’s catch up.

TLDR

• I’ve been busy making stuff (big surprise 😂)

• AI is now generating all the code

What I’ve been up to

It’s been 5 years, and a lot has changed. I’ve been busy. There have been some real wins and some real misses. At a glance:

• I have not finished writing my Serial Maker eBook.

• I fell in love with long-form generative art and have now produced 5 long-form generative art projects. I spoke about my artwork at a meetup.

• I launched a free Exit Math tool. I also took equity in some startups.

• I launched 2 new SaaS apps, ShinyTimer and Briefshot, neither of which is generating revenue yet.

• I’ve scaled back Six Overground. I’m a solo dev again.

• I’m still working on Daykeeper, my daily BuJo tool. Hopefully that will be ready for prime-time this year.

• I open sourced my Claude Project Manager operating system that I use when working with Claude Code.

Basically, I’m still making things. Sometimes finishing things, and sometimes not.

But the real sea change is not what I’m making. It’s how I’m making things. Let’s talk about the elephant in the room:

Artificial Intelligence

It’s inescapable. It’s the first thing on my mind, and likely on your mind as well. My entire industry has changed virtually overnight. I woke up in 2026 and everyone is using AI to code. Six months in, and I’m barely looking at actual code anymore. I spend almost my entire day talking to agents.

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That's right, a computer is coding now.

— Serial Maker Issue 46: Artificial Intelligence 🧠

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The blinding fear

When I first realized AI can code just as well as me, if not better, I lost a full week of sleep over it. Nothing keeps you up at night like existential dread.

Have I been cultivating my specific skillset for years, just to have a computer replace it?

Talking to the tech community, I’m not alone here. Things are scary.

Other devs have summed this up in their own words:

• We mourn our craft by Nolan Lawson

• Something Big Is Happening by Matt Shumer

• I was a 10x engineer. Now I’m useless. by Mo Bitar

Been there, done that

This isn’t the first existential change I’ve witnessed in my career, and I’ve since embraced this new paradigm. I watched my favorite platform, Flash, die. I watched offshore development drive coding work down to bargain basement prices. I’ve survived, and come out stronger. Being able to adapt to change is critical to surviving in this industry.

The job has changed. Coding itself is now abstracted away. And when you take a step back and look at what we do, the big picture is the same. I never claimed to be the best or fastest programmer. Clients don’t hire me for that. The real skill is knowing what to build, understanding how all the pieces fit together, and making things look good. Actually typing the code is meaningless.

Knowing that keeps me going.

AI pilled

So now I’m all in. I’ve tried virtually everything. GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, image generators, video generators, audio generators, Codex, Claude Design, Cursor, OpenClaw. The list goes on. It’s exhausting keeping up with the pace of this industry.

There’s so much to do.

Burnout

And because you can now do anything, anywhere, all at once, there’s this weird scatterbrained feeling I get regularly. It used to be that you needed to get into a flow state to do deep work over long periods of time. That’s no longer the case. I’m now rapidly switching contexts between agents and prompts. Instead of one large mental model, I’m now tracking up to 5 smaller, unrelated mental models. After a few hours of this, I’m mentally spent.

I’m optimistic

But I’m finding my groove. Over time, I’ve learned how to setup systems to automate the things I don’t want to do. I’m taking longer breaks throughout the day to reset. I’m spending more time designing. I feel like a creative director again.

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Hopefully soon, those of us who want to focus on the front-end will have that option. Fingers crossed 🤞

— Serial Maker Issue 62: Designer to DevOps 🤓

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The potential is unlimited if you’re a builder. I’d love to hear what you’re doing in this new world we live in.

Next issue: a deep dive into exactly how I work with AI day-to-day, tools and all. Make sure to subscribe to get it in your inbox.

Keep making, and thanks for reading! 🙌

Reply and tell me what you’re making. I’m looking for anyone interested in talking about their own side-projects and maker journey, so speak up if you’d like to appear in Serial Maker. I’d also love to know what you thought of this issue, and what you want to hear about in the future. Check out the past editions if you missed them, and don’t forget to continue the conversation on Discord!

Until next time,

Craig 👋